


Does he make you feel special?

by Dovey



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anorexia, Eating Disorders, Gen, Haruno Sakura-centric, Recovery, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-28
Updated: 2018-02-28
Packaged: 2019-03-25 01:57:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13824060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dovey/pseuds/Dovey
Summary: Sakura develops an eating disorder, and then she recovers with help from some friends.





	Does he make you feel special?

**Author's Note:**

> I've had the song Bad Boy by Dan Croll (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5THiYqJtIA) stuck in my head for ages because it's on my Sakura playlist for when I'm working on Dangerous Habits. Here's a fic vaguely inspired by that, but mostly about how Sakura ABSOLUTELY displays the early signs of an eating disorder in canon. i can't really fit it into a fic without it being the focus of the fic- similar to how Dangerous Habits is so explicitely about her self-mutilation- so here's a small fic that works on it.

She thought, if Sasuke liked her, she’d be special. She’d _count._ Everyone wanted Sasuke, after all. All the boys wanted to be strong like him, and the girls wanted to date him, and the adults wanted to train him- so maybe if Sasuke liked her too, she’d get a sliver of that attention for herself. More than that, maybe it meant she was special too, and he was just the only one smart enough to see it.

 Which is why she can distinctly feel her heart breaking when Sasuke tells her she’s annoying.

 He’s not her first crush, and she’s been turned down before- she’s not that cute and she’s not very charming, so she’s never been surprised by it. But she had pinned _so much_ on him, on the idea that if he just loved her it would be enough for her to be allowed to love herself. But he thinks she’s annoying, and obviously knows she’s weak, and he probably thinks she’s ugly, too. She’s not going to be able to change his mind, which means everyone was right- there’s nothing worthwhile about Sakura. Nothing at all. There was nothing for him to see in her because there was nothing there to see.

Sakura trudges home and she cries because she doesn’t have anyone to impress by not doing so.

 She goes up to her room and refuses to eat her dinner, even though Kakashi-Sensei had said not to eat breakfast, because right now she feels like she couldn’t afford the energy to chew anything ever again and Mother always tells her not to waste food.

 When she shows up, Sasuke refuses to look at her and Naruto stares too much, like he can see all her flaws. Sakura focuses her thoughts on how empty her stomach is, how long it’s been since she’s eaten, how she’s getting a little lightheaded from it and how that lightheadedness is making everything easier to handle.

 She doesn’t have high hopes for the bell test, and she’s shocked when runs into Sasuke and he tells her that she’s cute. He goes to grab her hand and she yells out _Kai!_ And he vanishes, because yesterday she’d have fallen for it but today she’s smart enough to know that no one would be dumb enough to think she’s cute, much less an Uchiha.

She vomits under a tree, nothing coming out, and thinks about how even when she bought it for a fraction of a second, she hated herself just as much. It’s not like she dreamed at all.

 They fail the bell test, but she gives Naruto her lunch. Not out of kindness- because Sakura is not kind, just like she’s not powerful or talented or pretty- but because she already knows she’s going to fail and Naruto deserves another shot, and because the very thought of eating feels her with clawing anxiety. She doesn’t have anything to prove, technically, but Mother was always so embarrassed when she ate as eagerly as she did when she was hungry, so it was better not to eat at all then do it improperly.

 They pass, miraculously, because of this, and she does not allow herself to believe it was her influence. It dumb luck. When she gets home and she finally eats, her stomach has gotten used to the smaller size and the food comes back up, and she can’t hide the mess fast enough before mother spots it.

“Honestly, Sakura, what have I said about wasting food? If you didn’t eat so fast you wouldn’t get so sick.” Mother says, and Sakura shrinks underneath her attention.

“Sorry, mom.” Sakura says, and she’s not allowed to eat until tomorrow morning as punishment.

When she only eats a third of the food prepared for her, more cognizant of how little her stomach can handle, her mother smiles and tells her to give the rest to the boys on her team.

“They’re growing boys, na? They need all the fuel they can get!”

She gives Sakura a warm pat on the back, Sakura’s first friendly touch in weeks, at the sight of how Properly Small Sakura’s meal was, and the girl runs to the first training session with a full bento box and a wide grin on her face.

-

When Sasuke leaves the village, it takes Sakura a few hours to properly register what happened. She’s not doing so great at telling reality apart from her dreams, partially because she sleeps so little lately. When she wakes up on a bench in the middle of the city, she assumes she had another fainting fit. _Further proof of how weak she is as a shinobi, how foolish. Resting in public, collapsing from something as trite as hunger._

She wants to bring him back, desperately, but she doesn’t know how she could. Her brain feels like it’s rattling in her skull and she can taste blood every time she talks. Her hair is falling out, and nobody notices, because who would notice a dumb girl falling apart by her own hands when the last Uchiha has just abandoned the village?

Once Naruto has left the village, Kakashi makes himself busy, and Sakura is blissfully alone. She dedicates herself to reading, and when her eyes get too blurry and her head too fuzzy, she drags herself home to sleep. She eats very little, keeps down even less, and the only thing that makes her happy these days is keeping track of how long it’s been since she’s last eaten.

-

When Tsunade arrives, she demands to meet the only remaining member of team seven so she can fully assess what she’s working with, here. Sakura makes it to the building out of breath and dizzy, frail and pale and her heartbeat is fast and off-pace.

Tsunade takes one look at her, and her world changes.

She shoved into a chair and given a thorough inspection. She’s prodded and questioned and ordered around, and Sakura doesn’t have the will to do anything but obey. It’s only halfway through being asked if her period has stopped- “Never had one” She says, and Tsunade takes in her short stature despite the fact that she’s now sixteen, and says, “that makes sense.”- that Kakashi makes his way out of the room, uncertain what’s happening but knowing this isn’t about team seven anymore and he’s invading something important.

Tsunade asks her when she last ate, and Sakura smiles when she says it’s been four days and a half. Tsunade asks her when she last slept, and she says “three days, I think.”

Tsunade asks her if she’s got somewhere to go, someone to go to. Sakura shrugs. “I had a friend when I was five.” She supplies, and then shakes her head. “That was a while ago, though. She might be dead?” It’s always a possibility with nin, and she’s not doing so great at keeping up to date on things. Half the time she forgets that Sasuke and Naruto is gone, and she shows up at the training spot and waits for far too long before it clicks that they can’t show up.

Tsunade does not cry, because Tsunade is a medical professional and a renowned warrior. Tsunade chugs a bottle of vodka and says, “Kid, you’re moving in with me.”

That’s when things start to change.

\--

She forgets to eat meals sometimes, still. She took the part of her brain that tells you when you’re hungry and she ruined it, so she has to keep a special watch that alerts her when to eat. Sometimes she relapses. But she gets better.

Tsunade works her up slowly, makes her follow her around and she’s not allowed in the bathroom with the door closed. Sakura isn’t allowed to not eat anything, but she’s not forced to finish her meals, either. She eats small portions that turn into normal ones, over the months, and it’s loaded with proteins and vitamins that her body desperately needs.

When she asks, Tsunade helps her shave her patchy hair down to smooth peach-fuzz. She wants it to grow back in fuller, has to start somewhere. She’s lucky it’s Tsunade, because she’s done some serious damage to her body- her heart was weak, her brain starting to it itself just as much as her muscles. If you don’t give it food, the body self-cannabilizes, and it’s only Tsunade’s influence that keeps her from an early grave.

Sakura gets stronger. Slowly, delicately, with the kind of attention making sure she doesn’t push too hard- but still pushes- watching over her that she had always so desperately wanted. She makes friends, following Tsunade around- with Shizune, and all the ANBU guards, some of whom have had to catch mid-faint during her early days. It’s embarrassing, but she’s used to being embarrassed, and at least she’s getting better. They don’t seem to mind. She starts to spend time with Hinata when the girl apprentices to the Hokage, and when they become close she starts to hang out regularly with Kiba and Shino, neither of whom mention her disappearance or shaved hair.

She meets Anko-san, and begs her to take her on.

“Why me, kid?” The woman asks, and Sakura gets it. She’s living with the Hokage, a legendary Sannin, and it’s true she’s taken some pointers from Tsunade before. But Anko is different.

“Because you’ve got a curse seal. You know what it’s like to fight your own body.” She says, and Anko can’t help but agree.

It’s bitter work, and she has to stop a month in because she relapses. This time around, she gets reminders from more than just Tsunade- the ANBU who guards the hokage’s apartment taps the word _breakfast_ in code on her window every morning. Shino makes her try his cousin’s newest attempt at a protein bar. Anko sits her down in a training yard and hands her a bag filled with dango to split.

 It’s easier, this time around, to get back on her feet.

\--

When she sees him again, he looks so….. similar. Sasuke has obviously gotten more powerful, but he’s the same exact boy she had chased after in the village.

He’s ignoring her to focus on Naruto, because all he knows is childhood rivalries and childhood weaknesses. She’s not a child anymore, and she’s not weak. If he wants to ignore her, that’s fine- Sakura doesn’t care what he thinks. She’s bringing him in because Tsunade doesn’t want a rogue ninja with clan secrets who will, almost inevitably, want to destroy Konoha.  She’s bringing him in because it’s what’s best for the village.

She slams the earth, feels it shatter underneath her hands, and begins the yin release that Anko had taught her a few months ago. For one, fragile, moment, she can feel both of her former teammates turn their focus on her.

She lets out a smile that’s more like a snarl, because mother always said ladies shouldn’t look like they’re enjoying a fight and _fuck_ what mother said, and sets about dismantling her opponent’s defense as quickly as possible so that Naruto can do whatever dumb showy move he has planned to finish the fight. Sasuke’s been training with oricihimaru, after all, and she already knows what fighting an apprentice of the snake is like. She wants to get this over with. 

 She's gotta get back in time for dinner with Hinata and Shizune, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> so you take a bad boy, take a bad boy home and you see, if he makes you feel special and he gives you that self believe.   
> Pick yourself up, wipe your tears dry, try to find the confidence you're holding inside.
> 
> *i can explain any aspects of this that seem confusing when it comes to your understanding of eating disorders. media versions of it tend to be pretty shallow and miss not only the long-term harm it can cause, but some of the more specific side effects that come with it.
> 
> Please get help if you're struggling with an eating disorder. It's one of the most deadly addictions, and the longer it goes untreated the bigger the ramifications are for you, especially if your body is still growing. There are healthier ways to cope, even if you don't think it's doing a lot of damage to you in the moment.


End file.
